ALOOOOOHHA!!!!

ALOOOOOHHA!!!!                          

The sunrise out my back door

Alright time is starting to fly by so quickly and our days are so busy that when we come to do daily planning in the evening we don't even have time to plan anything... I guess its a good and bad thing. But it's great because we have such great investigators <3 I seriously love them so much. So there's this lady named jane and she is like the sweetest. I will have o get a picture with her. she grows celery and bananas lol. but she is also one of the only non members in the ward so she wanted to learn more about what the people around her believed and try to understand why they looked at her weird when she smoked or things like that. so the more we have taught her the more we have found out that she really has such a hole in her life. she has never felt like this life has any purpose or anything like that. she wants to know why she is here, and as we teach her i know she feels the spirit because it is so powerful during our lessons. We have wanted to get the ward more involved in fellowshipping her but i guess a month ago there was an incident. Her boyfriend's son stole a car and was armed and was hiding at janes house i guess. and so when all of Laie police department surrounded her house and all had rifles, it freaked the neighbors out quite a bit. but the sad part is that jane is having to deal with the consequence of her "son", and he is in jail but they don’t even say hi to her anymore :( she is hesitant about coming to church because she feels judged and like the people won't accept her. and the worst part is that they -so far- wont. but that is something we are working on and trying to have with member lessons to show everyone how sweet and sincere she really is. She is reading the book of mormon but its the first book she has read for what sounds like a long time, plus she has to use a magnifying glass. so it's a slow process but we love teaching her and especially teaching the plan of salvation. I love the plan of salvation. I have always just had that as general knowledge to me growing up in the church, but teaching it to others helps me to fully realize what a blessing it is to know where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. And it's not even just wanting it to be true. It's something we can each know for ourselves that it is true. I also love that about the gospel. I love being able to tell people that all it takes is faith and action to prove your faith. The gospel is so amazing. 

Another family we are teaching (actually tonight we are teaching :)) is having a hard time with the POS because not all of it is in the bible (but it is with the JSTs) so tonight we are going to try to help them understand the restoration again. They are so awesome though. I love when people have such unshaken faith in Jesus Christ even when they aren't members of this church. Jesus is central to every lesson we teach and everything we do :) I love him.

Last night we got a referral for this guy "romie" who is some kind of Polynesian, but he speaks with such pidgin that we have a hard time understanding him haha we have already started praying for the gift of tongues because all his friends say he is so ready and earnest in wanting to learn about the gospel, but talking to him on the phone was us just asking him to repeat himself... tonight we get to teach him too :) I love how much God prepares people to accept the gospel.

In the Visitors' center there were a few miracles. Okay there were a lot of miracles but I will share a few ;). First off, this man in a wheelchair that is always hanging out at the VC with us, Danny, is so awesome. And one of the Sisters was having a hard time with something and asked him for a blessing. It was the best blessing ever. Not because he was in a wheelchair, but because he is so humble and loving and truly showed me how God can work through any worthy priesthood holder. Next, we had a few people that we hardly even talked to, like we got to know them and then asked them if they would be interested in learning more about the purpose of being here on earth, and they left their information! I know that doesn't sound crazy or anything, but when some people leave their info you can tell its just being polite or just wanting to be nice, but other people you can see in their eyes the desire to know God and it is such a blessing to be able to help others learn about God and why we are here. Also just sharing my testimony with others even if they don't leave info to keep teaching, i know they felt the spirit and might even keep the little commitments I leave with them (like to pray to God and ask if he is really there) and I just hope and pray that they have enough interest to look up mormon.org or beta.mormon.org which btw are so great and you all should look them up. :) 

I love you all so much. this gospel really is the gospel of Jesus Christ and of Heavenly Father. They both love us all so much and I get to see that daily- I hope you all can see that daily or start to look for it because I know it is there. I know that the Restoration really happened and that all the things that have been reveled to prophets in our latter days will bless us and help us return to God again someday <3 I love you and hope you have a great week!!!! 

Sister Nielsen